The International Desalination Association: Committed to Advancing the Use of Renewables in Desalination

Increasingly, the world is embracing desalination and water reuse to address its growing water challenges. Desalination is now practiced in 150 countries, and over 300 million people rely on desalinated water for some or all of their daily needs. Today, the cumulative installed desalination capacity exceeds 92.5 million cubic meters per day, with more than 19,000 desalination plants globally.

As the global hub for the worldwide desalination and water reuse industry, the International Desalination Association (IDA) is leading the way in promoting environmentally responsible, sustainable practices in desalination and advanced water treatment. The use of renewable energy to power advanced water treatment systems is at the heart of this mission, as it offers game-changing opportunities to achieve sustainability goals and reduce costs that were once only a dream. IDA is following closely the investments in large scale solar powered desalination plants which could cut the price of desalinated water dramatically by simply collecting on the wealth of sunshine in some countries.

IDA’s collaboration with the Global Solar Council (GSC) is an important step towards accelerating the potential for cost reductions and innovative solar energy solutions in desalination. IDA aims to work with the GSC to advocate development, testing and demonstration of advanced and innovative energy-efficient seawater desalination technologies and water ruse systems that can be powered by solar as a way to reduce environmental impacts and make clean water available globally.

IDA’s focus on renewables includes a special track on Renewables and Desalination at the 2019 IDA World Congress in Dubai held in partnership with the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA). The newly established IDA Sustainable Water Resources Foundation is dedicated to promoting environmentally safe technologies for water sustainability, including renewables for desalination. IDA’s Environmental Symposium explored renewables, with findings presented in a Blue Paper on Energy and the Environment.